Story Time
by AngmarBucket
Summary: A very very Au story where Bane, Talia, and Bruce all survive the last film. Where Bane and Bruce find something to bond over, to her horror. EXTREMELY INSANE but I hope you enjoy.


In a world where things ended differently, ridiculously differently, the Catwoman got her second chance and went to live a quiet life. Bane eventually healed from his wounds.

And Talia married Bruce Wayne.

And then came the stories, naturally.

Bruce and Talia, and her life-long protector, her friend and the Batman's bane, sat in the summer air at a little table in the garden. As usual, the get-together was not going well. Bane tried to ignore the fact that his beloved ward was now thirty-something and married to the world's saddest playboy; Bruce tried to pretend that his back didn't hurt from phantom pains long ago, but they always cropped up when he and Bane shared the same space for two long. Talia drank from a 5,000 glass something equally expensive, as if the entire thing weren't going to end in tragedy. But she knew an altercation would occur eventually. What would spark the fight this year? Would Bane insinuate something about Bruce's masculinity? Would Bruce subtly say, not in so many words, "She's mine now, and unlike you, I don't wear a mask anymore and hide away on an island she put aside for me"?

Generally both men put off talking as long as possible, for Talia's sake. This time, Bane pretended to take in the pleasant garden atmosphere outside Miranda Tate's summer mansion, which she'd given to him to partly return her debts to him, and partly to keep him away from the American government. Located on a small island well outside of US jurisdiction, no one could get Bane here, especially not with the well-trained dogs (which acted like puppies around Bane when he released them from their duties), alarm systems, video surveillance, and (only rumored outside the island, of course) certain weaponized defenses and means of escape. The air was clean, the semi-tropical landscape was bright and colorful and perfect to counter Bane's gloomier moods, and all three lay back in plush chairs under the gazebo. They were the only human beings within several miles of the nearest town, which was careful to ignore Bane's existence.

After an extended Talia said, "So, my friend: Bruce and I might be pregnant."

Bane squeezed his eyes at her in response. It meant either "You're dead to me, girl," or "I'm trying to smile for your sake, and it hurts my face and my pride." Out loud he said, "That is good news; a proper heir. Is it a boy or a girl?"

Bruce muttered to him, "We're not sure yet."

"Hopefully a boy," Bane said. This time he allowed an actual smile to his visible features. "I know about raising girls-they are hard to handle."

Talia smiled back at him. Memories blossomed in the air between them. Next to her, Bruce shifted and almost scowled. Too late, she realized Bane had been alienating him. As usual, he did so by pulling Talia closer to him, like a jealous father. Just like her actual father had, in fact.

"Well, I don't mind the sex, and I know Bruce will be happy with either as well," she said with learned diplomacy.

"Of course," Bane said, "especially since Bruce would be happy with any living creature that loved him."

Talk about the subtle knife. She cast Bane an acidic warning look:_ Not this year_, she said with her eyes. _Don't you dare_.

Bruce just inspected his drink before taking a sip. She was about to relax when he suddenly said, "Maybe that's true. I'm just glad I'll be worthy of that love."

And they were off.

"Worthiness has nothing to do with it," Bane said. "Fortunately, our children are ignorant, innocent, heartless. They do to appreciate their parents as they should…" he titled his head, as if carefully calculating his words within words, smile deeming until it was no longer so pleasant, and said, "-until their parents are gone, perhaps."

There was a horrible crack as Bruce broke the glass in his hands. Whatever mild alcohol he'd had poured ran down his bloodied fingers. Talia almost pulled back in actual shock. This visit was going to be worse than usual.

"I wondered what would break first…." Bane whispered, his voice barely audible. There was no smile now-his eyes had narrowed to humorless slits in his face.

"Enough!" Talia hissed. "I am not going to tolerate this! Bruce, that was my father's-my-just don't drink out of those again, please. And Bane-I come here because you ask, you ask _me_ to visit _you_-"

"Indeed. I ask for _you_, my dear," Bane said, "not the limp dishrag who dresses in rubber and latex."

"As opposed to the man who can't find more than three changes of clothes?" Bruce said. "That jacket is at least ten years old, and smells like twenty."

Bane's muscles flexed like waves preceding a tsunami. Talia prepared to throw herself in front of her husband-yet again. Sometimes it was Bruce's only way of avoiding a fight he was too prideful to back down from. One day Bane had just picked her up and set her aside, and the damage that followed as the two men threw punches they could no longer afford to take had been astronomical.

"Not all of us can afford the sun and the moon," Bane snapped back, "with enough left over to wear over-priced clothing made by children in countries our companies have bankrupted."

Talia stood up and slapped the table. "Stop it _at once_! Both of you! Bane, my friend, I enjoy seeing you. My child will see you. But Bruce is my husband, and we go into the world, even to you, together. By accusing my husband, you accuse also my choice to marry him. We are a united front, and if you oppose him, you oppose me. Is that what you want?"

Bane blinked at her; not guilty, but stunned at the forcefulness of her words.

"I have never opposed you," he said.

"No, not intentionally. So I beg you do not start-especially because I wish to have my child here, away from the world, with you to be its guardian in times of trouble. You don't have to love Bruce-just treat him like the man I chose." She sat back down. With regret, she added, "You act like my father, when you judge my choices. He judged many people wrongly, remember?"

Bane grunted noncommittally. "You and your _guilt_." He leaned back in his chair and his tensed frame loosened a millimeter. "You've perfected it, little mouse."

Bruce crooked an eyebrow at Bane, then Talia.

"From an Egyptian fable," she explained; it was easier to talk about anything else. "My nickname. Well, it was when I was a child."

"You are still that little mouse," Bane told her with a smirk. "The prideful Mouse Vizier."

"What is this Mouse Vizier?" Bruce asked her.

She smiled tolerantly. "Oh, the story goes that a mouse was made vizier in Egypt. But even though he was small he was very ambitious, and terrorized the country."

"Just like little Talia," Bane said. A genuine warm smile touched his eyes. "I remember, when you were only four or five years old, how you tried to control everything. Even my own cell-you acted like the queen of it. So I told you that story."

"And?" Bruce prompted her, wanting to hear more but not wanting to go to the source.

"And nothing," she said. "I was a child, he made fun of me, and when I cried he told me the story."

"No," Bane said. "You were bossy, I told you the story, and then you cried. You said the mouse wasn't a bad mouse. He was just being practical."

"Ah," Bruce said. He'd looked up the story on his phone. "It says here the mouse flogged a Nubian slave boy?"

"It's just a story," Talia said. "Honestly, that hasn't been my nickname in years. I barely remember all this."

"You hit me one day," Bane said, "and that's when I told you the story, remember?"

Now Bruce was hooked. He actually said to Bane, "Her? She hit you?"

"Hardly!" Talia said. "I was five. It didn't hurt him." She put her hands on her hips. "In any event, dinner will be done in ten minutes. Perhaos we should-"

"Your memory's coming back, it seems," Bruce said. To Bane: "Why'd she hit you?"

Bane gestured vaguely. "She didn't want to eat the bread I got for her. I told her to eat it. She hated being told what to do, threw a fit and struck me-with her tiny little fists." Bane showed Talia his bare arm. "Right here. You didn't even bruise me."

"Violent," Bruce said with a smirk at her. "You never told me you were a disobedient child."

"I punished her by making her do a hundred push-ups," Bane said. "And then I was "mean" according to her and she wouldn't talk to me. So I compelled her to talk by telling her the story of the mouse vizier."

"Thank you for the unnecessary examination of my youth," she said. "But I am no longer a five-year-old."

"No, you were manageable when you were five. When you hit six or seven I had to actually discipline you."

Bruce leaned in towards Bane. "You spanked her?" That didn't sound right to him.

Bane huffed, as if insulted. "No, of course not." He shrugged. "I just switched her legs. She broke like a ba… well, she suddenly repented, let's say."

Talia frowned. "Yes, I was a willful child," she said drily. "I'll remind you both I grew up in prison. I didn't have the best manners at the time, even for a child."

"You had no manners," Bane said with his usual bluntness. "One time, you just took your clothes off, in the middle of everyone. There was chaos."

Bruce burst into laughter.

"I did not!" she shrieked.

"You did-you were two. Your mother and I were talking, you felt ignored so you started running around without you clothes."

Bruce had to put the drink down-he'd almost spit it out. As it was, he burned his nasal passages and nearly choked because of it.

"No," Talia said firmly. "I do _not _remember that."

"Because you were two."

Bruce composed himself. "Lia, every child does it," he said.

"She did it every day."

Talia grew very red and Bruce-then, to her shock, Bane-started to laugh. Bruce laughing was bad enough. Bane and Bruce laughing in agreement on anything-that was nearly nightmarish. She'd try for years to make them speak properly to each other. Now they united on something?

"Enough," she said. "Dinner-it needs to be soon, so we should-"

"What else would she do as a child?" Bruce asked. "I admit, she never talks about it….understandable, but at the same time-"

Bane tilted his head in thought. Talia went cold. "Bane-" she said warningly, but he was already snapping his fingers in remembrance.

"Well, she kept her clothes on only when I could get enough water for her bath. She hated baths. She was always rolling in the sand. I tricked her into taking baths by telling her there was sand in the pot in the little trough I got for her."

Bruce laughed again and Talia wondered why she married him. No, why she hadn't killed him when she had the chance. And why Bane wasn't in Federal prison.

"_Gentlemen_," she said. "This isn't polite conversation. Also, dinner-"

Bane was too busy smiling at the memories to listen. And Bruce was actually listening raptly as he began to summon more stories up front he veritable well he apparently had of them. All Talia could do was listen in horror-about her wearing a bag on her head, sneaking a lizard onto her sleeping mat with her, more stories about her childhood penchant for tearing her clothes off-

When Bane started talking about the post-jail time they'd spent together, before his excommunication, she nearly flipped the table over.

"Running through her father's house," he said more animatedly. Bruce was chuckling. "Bubbles everywhere, barely clothed-to her credit, I suppose-"

She couldn't let this go any further, not even if the fighting would start again. Talia walked around the table and grasped her former protecter's shoulder. "My friend," she said as calmly as she could, "my dear friend; talk about something else, or I will have my Shadows throw you out for the night. They still exist, as you know."

Then she kissed his forehead and sat back down.

Bane waved off her warning, but after that they switched gears.

But, she had to admit, dinner that night was very lovely.

AN: What the piss did I just do? I hope you don't commit me, but I can't say it wasn't fun.


End file.
